Pro Talk: : Fishing Lights for Pensacola Bull Redfish with Marty Mood

Posted by Hogy Lures Staff on Jan 03, 2013

15 Minutes with: Hobie Regional Pro Staff Marty Mood

Here’s what we learned. . .

Location:3 Mile Bridge – Pensacola, FL

Tides:Outgoing

Approach:I can share a report, no big secret there. I was fishing the “3 mile bridge” that connects downtown Pensacola to Gulf Breeze/Pensacola Beach. It is a very popular night time spot due to the structure from the bridge and the lights concentrating the fish. Some nights it is a really good spot to sight fish to Bull Reds in the lights, but that night it was a total washing machine due to E/SE winds coming right down the Bay so making sighting fishing impossible. Instead, I was using the depth finder to find large concentrations of bait with bigger marks nearby.

Why this bait?The profile and size of the 7inch Original is perfect to imitate medium size mullet and sardines that wash out with the tide.

Colors:Bone and Bubble Gum are great.

Retrieve:On this night, the wind and tide were working against each other, which pushed the fish down towards the bottom in 20′ – 28′. The weight of the jig head was necessary to maintain contact around the bottom structure. A normal, lift-pause retrieve was used to temp these fish into biting. On calm nights, its common to see these redfish swimming at the surface. In that case, I would choose to use a lightly weighted hook, like theHogy® 5/0 Weighted Swim Bait Hook.

Outfit:

Kayak:Hobie Pro Angler 14

Reel:Daiwa Ballistic 3000

Reel:7′ Medium action G-Loomis spinning rod

Line:30lb Power Pro Braid

Leader:For these heavier redfish 30lb Fluorocarbon tied line to line with a crazy Alberto knot works perfectly.